


Carpe Diem

by Zoe Rayne (MontanaHarper)



Category: Odyssey 5
Genre: M/M, Yuletide 2005
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-01-01
Updated: 2006-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-11 20:28:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/116769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MontanaHarper/pseuds/Zoe%20Rayne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you're so busy fighting the battle that you forget to live, then you've already lost the war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carpe Diem

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jmtorres](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jmtorres/gifts).



> Thanks to Arduinna for a fabulous last-minute beta, as well as for repeated reassurances that my ideas didn't suck, and for her unswerving confidence that I'd actually finish this story by the deadline; and to Casspeach for her Britpicking of Kurt's dialogue, and for poking me repeatedly to make me write. Any remaining mistakes are all me.

> "Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,  
> Before we too into the Dust descend."  
> —Omar Khayyám

There was enough time between when Neil knocked on the door and when Kurt answered for Neil to decide that this had been a bad idea, but not quite enough time for him to actually turn and leave before the door opened to reveal Kurt, dressed only in a pair of scrub pants and holding a glass of white wine.

"Sorry," Neil said, glancing past Kurt into the loft. He could hear the faint strains of classical piano music and could imagine the stacked blonde who was likely to be curled up in Kurt's bed, waiting for him to come back. "You've probably got company."

Kurt smiled and shook his head. "Not at all. Just enjoying a solitary evening at home, steadfastly ignoring the fact that the whole bloody planet's set to blow up at any moment," he said, stepping back and gesturing Neil inside. "I assume this is a social call?"

"Something like that." Neil wasn't exactly sure why he was here, actually, but it didn't involve synthetics or sentients, so he figured it fell under the category of social. The pleasant anticipatory buzz of arousal he'd felt this morning had turned to an edginess, an almost-imperceptible itch under his skin, and now he had the restless urge to pace, or maybe to throw things that would shatter satisfyingly. He hadn't known where else to go; it wasn't like he could talk to Sarah or Angela about his love life, and Dad...well, that was a disaster waiting to happen. He shrugged out of his jacket and hung it over the back of a chair while Kurt poured a glass of wine for him.

"Aren't you meant to be on a tryst with the lovely Holly tonight?" Kurt asked as Neil took the glass.

Trust Kurt to get right to the point. "Apparently," Neil said, not bothering to disguise the traces of sarcasm, "I was having second thoughts. Luckily, Holly was, too, so we're still on the same fucking page." He took a drink of the wine and let its smooth heat flow through him. "I'm starting to remember why I spent most of high school stoned; being seventeen sucks, and having to do it all over again sucks exponentially."

"Well, then, you should take a break from being seventeen," Kurt said with a smile that could have been mocking but wasn't. "I was just sitting down to supper. It's nothing fancy, but there's enough to share."

It was more than Neil had expected. He'd thought Kurt would offer some advice, maybe—along with a good-sized ration of shit, because that's what Kurt did—and then send him packing. He hadn't planned on sticking around, hadn't anticipated being treated like an actual friend. "Are you sure?" he asked, still worried that he was cramping Kurt's style by being there.

"Good food, good wine, and good company," Kurt said decisively, flipping a switch on the stereo and silencing the piano concerto that had been playing softly in the background. "What more could you need? And with several hundred satellite channels, we might even be able to find a decent film on, though that might be pushing our luck. Here," he said, handing Neil his own wineglass and nodding toward the neatly made bed and the television beside it. "Make yourself comfortable, and I'll bring the food over."

Setting the glasses on the back of the window ledge, Neil piled the pillows against it, then toed off his sneakers and sat down, feeling more at home in his own skin than he had since the Seeker had sent them back. He was reaching over his shoulder for his glass when a remote control landed in his lap.

"See what you can find, will you?" Kurt called from the kitchen, and Neil looked up to see him arranging several plates on a wooden tray.

Neil pushed a button and the television came to life, a riot of color and noise, and it took him a few deafening seconds to find and press the mute button. "Jesus Christ, Kurt, what the fuck?" He stared at the picture for another few seconds before recognizing the channel logo. "M2? Since when do you watch music videos?" he said, disbelievingly.

"Research." Kurt settled the tray in the middle of the bed and headed back to the kitchen, returning with two bottles of wine—an unopened one in a stainless-steel wine cooler and a nearly empty one that he killed topping off both their glasses, overfilling Neil's a little in the process.

Gesturing toward the plates of fruit, cheese, and bread on the tray, he said, "Help yourself." He sat down on the other side of the bed and reached for the remote, but Neil held it away from him.

"No way, man. I don't trust you anymore." Neil took a handful of raspberries and blackberries, then flipped past home shopping networks and Jerry-Springer wannabes until he found a familiar image. Tucking the remote next to his thigh, he leaned back against the pillows to watch, popping berries into his mouth one at a time.

"Galadriel, hmmm?" Kurt said, looking up from where he was spreading brie on a chunk of French bread. "Interesting. Eowyn seems much more your type."

Kurt was right. Eowyn was strong and independent and, honestly, reminded Neil a lot of Holly. It was just a little weird to realize that Kurt knew him well enough to make that kind of assessment, and to make it correctly.

Neil shrugged, going for casual but not quite sure if he made it. "Eowyn's not around yet, Galadriel is."

"Ah, an attraction of convenience, then. How pragmatic of you." Kurt bit into a peach half and Neil turned back to the movie, washing down the last of his berries with the last of his wine. He was suddenly a lot less hungry than he had been a few minutes ago.

They watched silently for a while, the movie familiar enough that Neil could almost quote it. Everything was resonating on a whole new level for him, though, and he could suddenly empathize with the Fellowship—heroes by circumstance as much as by choice, fighting against something almost too large to be comprehended.

Kurt opened the second bottle of wine and refilled their glasses as Saruman oversaw the birth of the Uruk-hai army at Isengard. By the time the Fellowship made camp at Amon Hen, Neil had finished his third glass and the residual edginess had faded, replaced by a warm glow.

"I wish synthetics were that easy to recognize," he said, nodding at the Uruk-hai that swarmed up the hill toward Aragorn. They were large and deformed and hard to kill, but you could pick them out of a crowd. You'd never wake up one morning to find you had one for a next-door neighbor, or sleeping in bed beside you. "I get really tired of uncertainty, you know?"

"Life is uncertainty," Kurt replied, and Neil couldn't decide whether that was amazingly profound or a giant load of bullshit.

Then the Uruk-hai descended on Boromir, and all Neil could see was Angela's face, pale and sheened with sweat, blood trailing down her cheek as she convulsed, seconds from dying.

"Fuck." He fumbled with the remote and hit the power button with more force than was strictly necessary.

They could die. They could all die, any day, any _second_. Why the fuck were he and Kurt sitting here, eating strawberries and brie and drinking white wine, when there were people walking around who weren't really people and someone or some _thing_ was trying to blow up the fucking planet?

Neil hadn't even realized that he'd spoken the words aloud until Kurt answered him.

"Because the strawberries and the brie and the _Beaumes de Venise_ are what makes life worth living. And sharing them with people we care about is what makes the world worth saving." Kurt leaned forward, close enough that Neil could feel the warmth radiating off him, and Neil wasn't so drunk that he didn't get the unspoken question.

Kurt's mouth tasted like peaches and sweet wine.


End file.
